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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Right, we all know that a climate of budget butchery is in the air. Lewisham has joined in the fray by setting up a consultation page on its website. It's an online survey which they estimate will take 20 minutes to complete and which will remain open until 7 October. In essence, it's a series of questions about which parts of the council's services should get the chop and which parts should be kept as ''free'' services, paid for on demand, or ''big societised'' - by which I mean hived off to the voluntary sector or left for individuals to assume greater responsibilities.

Nowhere, of course, is to be found an option to trim the fat off the administrative costs that the council incurs, nor is there a question about whether council executive pay should be reduced in line with the expectations of a smaller council and general austerity in the public sector. I read this part of the survey introduction:

Remember, this is not the only way to get involved. You can also comment on our forum, attend your local assembly or come and speak to us when we take the debate out onto the streets.

So I looked for the forum to see what other residents had had to say on the subject. But I couldn't find the forum. So I did a search....